Chapter 5
Maggie
The suitcase lay open on the bed, half-full and judgmental. Maggie stood at its edge with a suit vest in one hand and a pair of jeans in the other, neither feeling like the right choice. Vegas felt too loud for linen, too synthetic for cotton. Or maybe she just didn’t want to go now.
Rosie burst in, a whirlwind in mismatched pajamas. “Can I have a snack that isn’t a snack but is still a treat?”
Maggie squinted. “So… dessert?”
“No,” Rosie said solemnly. “Something crunchy and special.”
“We could have popcorn?” Maggie offered, remembering the bag of Smartfood she’d bought yesterday. “There’s some in the pantry.”
Rosie lit up. “Popcorn! Yes!”
Maggie watched her bounce back down the hall, then looked at her phone. 3:08 p.m. The afternoon sun streamed through the blinds, lighting up the dust she hadn’t had the energy to care about. She sat on the edge of the bed, ignoring the accusatory huff of the suitcase.
When Rosie had first asked why Mommy didn’t sleep in Maggie’s bed anymore, Maggie had said something about snoring. Rosie nodded solemnly, as though she understood. The boys shrugged it off. Kids accepted things adults choked on.
She reached into her dresser and pulled out an old Rice University hoodie.
The hem was fraying, one sleeve scarred by a mysterious bleach mark, but it still smelled faintly of detergent and stress.
She’d gone to grad school intending to be on the research side of things rather than the teaching side.
Grad school had been a blur of gallery lectures and Claude Cahun research, coffee-fueled nights, and Gwen appearing like an architectural thesis come to life.
Gwen had been all sharp lines and quiet ambition. They’d met at a party thrown by one of Maggie’s seminar friends. Maggie spilled cheap red wine, and Gwen wordlessly handed her a napkin. That was the whole meet-cute. Not fireworks. Just a steady hand and a look that said, “I can help.”
She threw the sweatshirt into the suitcase, then pulled it back out again. This was Vegas in September. Why would she need a sweatshirt held together by sentimentality?
Her phone buzzed. A text from Danica.
Danica
How many pairs of shoes are too many pairs of shoes to pack?
Maggie hesitated. She’d told herself it would be easier to be honest, to finally say what she should’ve said weeks ago: that she and Gwen were separated, figuring out divorce.
That it wasn’t some temporary funk she could be talked out of.
But even as her thumb hovered over the reply, her pulse quickened and her stomach turned over in knots.
Just say it, she told herself. Say it and let it be real. Stop dragging it around like a ghost.
With the kind of impulsiveness that had defined much of her twenties — and, evidently, still plagued her thirties — she hit Call instead of replying.
She could do this. She could rip off the Band-Aid. She could just be honest with her friends. Hell, if Danica told Pete, Maggie wouldn’t have to worry about telling Kiera or Izzy, since Pete would inevitably relay the information at warp speed.
“Maggie,” Danica answered, her voice already fizzy with excitement. She sounded mid-bachelorette-planning-mode, which, knowing Danica, she absolutely was.
“Hey, babe. Good news, there is no limit to the shoes. They should have their own suitcase, honestly,” Maggie joked.
Danica exhaled in what sounded a lot like relief. “Okay, I’ve made a spreadsheet for outfits, but the shoes were really throwing me. I figured texting my stylist was the only answer.”
Classic Danica. Maggie smiled. She heard a few hushed words between Danica and someone else, but she cleared her throat and soldiered on. “Listen, I wanted to tell you—”
“Oh, wait, Pete wants me to put you on speaker. Say hi.” Danica laughed. Of course she was laughing. She was engaged, carefree, and about to go to a bachelorette party with her best friends.
“Hi, Mags,” came Pete’s voice, followed by the distinct clink clink clink of a cocktail shaker. “We’re taste-testing a second round of grapefruit margs, for science. We need to make sure they’re strong enough at the wedding to make Gwyneth dance and weak enough that no one loses a tooth.”
“Seriously,” Danica chimed in, practically bouncing through the phone. “I can’t believe she said yes. Gwen never comes on our trips. It’s such a treat to get to know her better and watch how adorable you two are together.”
“I’ve already made a playlist that includes her guilty pleasures,” Pete added. “And Kiera printed custom temporary tattoos with our faces on them. We’re going full chaos. Gwyneth’s not ready.”
Danica laughed. “But I am. I’m so ready. I swear if she doesn’t end up in a hot tub or a karaoke booth at some point, we’ve failed. This is going to be epic.”
Well, fuck.
Maggie opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“Yeah,” she said instead, her voice barely keeping pace with the thud of her heartbeat. “It should be… so, so fun. Listen—”
“We were just saying how it’ll be even better than Telluride or San Diego because Gwyneth’s coming. Now we don’t have to worry about you being the fifth wheel,” Pete said, slurping what Maggie could only assume was said grapefruit margarita.
Danica laughed. “And maybe this time Gwen will actually let loose. Who knows, right?”
She stared at the ceiling, trying to will her pulse back to normal.
She really had meant to tell Danica the truth.
She was going to tell her. But then Pete had started raving about margaritas and Gwen dancing and tattoos with their faces on them, and suddenly Maggie felt like a pinata being asked to hold her own bat.
If they were this excited about Gwen coming, how could she ruin it? How could she deflate their joy with her messy reality — the silence in their house, the absence of Gwen on endless work trips, the separate beds, the half-hearted therapy sessions that ended in more questions than answers?
Now she definitely couldn’t tell them. Not without feeling like she was setting off a glitter bomb of disappointment.
She could already hear Pete’s “Wait, what?” and see Danica’s face fall in confusion.
It wasn’t that they’d be mad, not really.
They’d just be… sad, which was so much worse.
Then the questions would start. And suddenly their happy, blissful weekend would be about her, and they’d have those pitying looks.
Maggie didn’t want to be the one to bring sadness to a weekend meant for fun.
So, once again, she swallowed it. She laughed along. She said, “Totally,” shortly after, blamed a fictional child-related emergency, and dropped her phone face down on the bed.
She wished she could call her mom. Her mom would laugh until she cried at the mess Maggie was in, then scoop up the chaos and help Maggie through it, like she always did.
The worst part of grief wasn’t regret. It was just wishing she could hear her mom laugh one more time.
She blinked back tears, still staring at the ceiling, her eyes tracing the beams she and Gwen had designed together.
She didn’t believe in God, necessarily, or any kind of religion, but she did feel a bit of comfort imagining her mom watching over her somehow.
“What do I do?” she whispered in some kind of prayer, closing her eyes.
She stayed like that for a long time, waiting for some kind of sign.
A warmth flooded her body, and she was briefly comforted and in awe before realizing that no, something was very, very warm and smelling like… wait. She opened her eyes to see Rosie standing over her, eyes wide as burnt popcorn spilled from a bowl all over Maggie’s legs.
“What is this?” Maggie scrambled to brush the popcorn off her legs and onto the floor.
“Mama, Arlo helped me make popcorn but this tastes bad,” Rosie said, her eyes welling with tears. “Help.”
Maggie took a deep breath, willing herself back from the edge of losing her patience. She put a hand on Rosie’s shoulder. “It’s okay, honey. I’ll help you get some popcorn. First step, let’s get the vacuum.”
The air inside Found & Chosen was cool, pine-scented, and threaded with Motown. Maggie had meant to sneak in to drop off the tags she’d just picked up at the printer near the kids’ school, but Colette caught her lurking by a tulip-shaped hanging lamp.
“Tell me you’re not such a loser without a life that you have to hang out here for fun,” Colette said, walking out from the beaded curtain to the back room.
Maggie gave her a thin smile. “It’s less chaotic than home.”
Colette, tall and cat-eyed in a vintage silk robe over wide-leg jeans, slid a pair of sunglasses on top of her head. “Okay, so what’s with the energy? You look like someone put your self-esteem through a pasta roller.”
Maggie leaned on the counter. “Nothing. Rosie and Arlo tried to burn down the house yesterday with popcorn, but crisis averted. Do you think daytime sequins still fly in Vegas, or has it gotten too boring?”
Colette gave her a long, assessing stare. “Vegas isn’t real life. But sometimes, stepping out of real life for a minute shows you what matters most when you come back.”
“Did we get some psilocybin in the latest shipment or what? When did you become so…” Maggie gestured. “Zen? Wise? Quotable? About sequins.”
Colette tapped her temple. “Just tapping into my higher self.”
“Does that require a cult oath to a fake guru, or can you do that all on your own?” Maggie teased.
“Maybe you should come with me to one of my meditation retreats. Silence might do you good,” Colette said, shrugging.
Maggie snorted. “Being alone with my thoughts sounds like hell, not a reprieve.”
Colette smirked. “See? That’s exactly why you need it. To learn the difference between intentional quiet and internal panic.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Or maybe I just need cocktails and sequins.”
“Sequins are a form of meditation,” Colette said smoothly, but Maggie could see a mischievous glint in her friend’s eye. “Each one reflects its own light, each one a tiny mantra.”
“God, you’re insufferable,” Maggie said, but she was laughing now, tension loosening in her shoulders.
“I feel like I’d be a really good cult leader,” Colette replied. She leaned across the counter. “Seriously, Maggie, you okay? You’ve got a pre-Vegas spiral look.”
“I’ll survive.” Maggie rubbed her temple. “I just… don’t know what I’m doing. And I hate packing.”
“Packing is just editing your life down to the things you want to be seen in,” Colette said. “No wonder it’s stressful.”
Maggie barked a laugh. “Okay, you’re terrifyingly good at this. Anything else, cult leader?”
Colette smirked. “Yeah. Take the sequins. Always take the sequins.”
Maggie took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for the weekend ahead. “I’ll see you when I get back?”
“You can always call if you need, okay?” Colette said, giving her hand a squeeze.
Maggie saluted casually, the barest hint of a smile tugging at her lips.
But as she stepped into the bright Texas sun, the humidity hugging her skin like a too-warm blanket, her heart gave a quiet lurch.
She didn’t know what she was doing — still.
Only that she was about to board a plane with her almost-ex-wife and a suitcase full of half-truths.
And if clarity didn’t come soon, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep pretending that she wasn’t unraveling.
When Maggie got home, the kitchen smelled faintly of grilled cheese and the air was full of the chaotic hum of the kids’ voices.
Gwen was at the table with Jude, orchestrating an elaborate marble run that zigzagged across books and overturned mixing bowls while Arlo tried to crash a monster truck into the structure.
Rosie lay on her stomach nearby, coloring and softly singing.
Maggie bent down, kissed each kid on the forehead, and headed upstairs to finish packing.
“Listen,” Gwen said from the doorway a moment later, leaning against the frame in that maddeningly casual way she had. “I’ll back out of the Vegas trip if you really want.”
Colette’s words floated up in Maggie’s memory — about stepping out of real life for a while. “No. I’m still a fucking coward, and I didn’t tell Danica. And they’re so excited to see you,” she admitted, rubbing at her eyes.
“I’ll be the bad guy,” Gwen offered, hands slipping into her pockets. “I’ll tell them I have a work thing.”
“No. Come to Vegas. It’ll be a fun trip, and… we could just pretend to be okay for the weekend, if you’re good with that.” The feelings in Maggie’s chest were a mess of anticipation, hope, and deep, humiliating dread.
Gwen’s brows lifted. “Okay, so… we’re doing this?”
Maggie shoved another stack of clothes into her suitcase. “I guess so.”
A grin flickered across Gwen’s face — quick, mischievous — and for a heartbeat Maggie thought she saw actual excitement there. Then Jude yelled something about Arlo creating a marble disaster, and Gwen winked at her before disappearing back downstairs to save the game.